Analyzing Urban Outfitters Five Years Later

On Saturday, I happened to find myself standing in front of an Urban Outfitters. This is significant not only because I never leave my house, but also because I haven't been to an Urban Outfitters since college. After spending ten minutes in the place, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Urban Outfitters sucks a bushel of dog balls.

See, son *pulls up chair, sits on it backwards, flexes for no reason*, Urban Outfitters is a place that co-opts fashion trends and shreds their quality, while dropping the price just enough so as to create the illusion that you’re getting a deal. I don’t have to explain to you why this is stupid and horrible, but because slandering things on the Internet is both fun and profitable, I'm going to do it anyway.

In college, you and your friends shopped at Urban, probably for the same reason you now think it's kinda wack: They sell shittier, more ridiculous versions of things that are actually popular. When you're in college you don't care because part of the point of being in college is getting the best value on dumb shit as humanly possible. This is the same principle that drove you to drink two Four Lokos six nights a week during the summer of 2010. And that's fine. But you're an adult now. You drink drinks with fancy names and farm-to-table crushed ice when you get wasted, and you don't mind investing in clothes that will last because you understand that in five years you want a cool-looking shirt that you spent $200 on vs. a similar, but dumb looking shirt with holes in it that you spent $40 on.

Walking around the men's section of Urban, I took note of what they were selling, mainly so I would make sure never to wear anything remotely resembling it ever again. Urban Outfitters contains many fake leather garments! Fake leather garments as far as the eye can see! Fake leather sweatshorts (I have never understood how these even remotely make sense TBH)! Fake leather sweatpants that seem like only a high school wrestler trying to make weight would want to wear! Fake leather tank tops with mesh in the back so you can turn your upper body into a sail! Meanwhile, Urban's stocking so much drop crotch that it makes me worry their buyers are freebasing meth out of Justin Bieber's immaculate, bleached asshole. In addition to the aforementioned drop-crotch-faux-leather-sweat look for high school wrestlers, Urban also stocks drop crotch chinos with elastic cuffs, as well as drop crotch tie-dye sweatpants and, just in case you thought they even remotely gave a shit about this guy, drop crotch sweatpants in Native American-inspired prints. Also, they sell scooters for some reason?

Dressing like you're trying to play sports in the club may very well be dead and Urban Outfitters may very well have killed it, but don't retreat to #normcore just yet because Urban Outfitters also has a fucking tent hanging off one of its walls, and that tent is surrounded by very normal looking clothes. Which is fine, because nobody took #normcore seriously in the first place. But still.

So, in conclusion, Urban Outfitters still sucks, and as long as people keep buying their shit they will continue to suck until our planet is invaded by aliens who enslave us for dressing so unswaggily. With the recent news that Urban is opening up a "concept shop" (I have no idea what this actually means) in Williamsburg, we can only assume that their inexorable march towards ubiquity will continued unfettered. There is nothing we can do to combat it, honestly. The real money is in capitalizing off selling trendy shit to normals rather than creating the trends others capitalize off of, which means we're all going to die alone, unloved, clutching our well-made garments to our chests as we greet the icy sheen of death. At least our sweatpants will be made out of real leather.

Drew Millard wrote this from inside a tent at Urban Outfitters. You can read more of his work on Noisey and follow him on Twitter here.

Yeah but in that post I specifically said “Now all the lames can buy shirts now…”

Woofs Mackenzie

twice the now, twice the fun

TDobb

I understand what ur saying, Drew, but…….you probably get all ur clothes for free. Urban ain’t that bad, you just gotta dig deep to find decent shit. And they also have all-black Chuck Taylors. EVERY TIME.

Rob

Hey Drew, did your alarm not work and now you’re all cranky cause you missed the Spring Summer SUPREME release? Chill dude. Urban Outfitters doesn’t suck. You do. Keep on paying ridiculous prices for pieces that will be out of style next year, with quality just as good/bad as Urban’s stuff.

Howard

UO is a big corporation catering to whatever style today’s youth wears. Few years back it was all about the emo look, now it’s all streetwear lol.

Someguy

Must be a slow news day. Didn’t the ‘hate on Urban’ trend die like 2 years ago?

WAVY

”The real money is in capitalizing off selling trendy shit to normals rather than creating the trends others capitalize off of”
You actually call swagless people ”normals” Andrew? As opposed to what? Extraordinary? Like this picture of you in your ”well-made garments? You look as fly as MH370 bruh.